A easy gravestone in Toronto’s Necropolis Cemetery marks the resting place of Henry Brown. Inscribed with the phrases, “Henry Brown, died June 15, 1897,” it gives little indication of the extraordinary life that led him to his closing resting place within the metropolis. For these aware of his story, Henry Field Brown’s life is a testomony to braveness, ingenuity, and resistance to slavery.
Born round 1815 in Virginia, Brown’s youth was formed by the brutality of slavery. Descended from Africans kidnapped and delivered to the American South, he was enslaved in a Richmond tobacco manufacturing unit. In “The Narrative of Henry Field Brown Written By Himself (1849)”, he writes, “I entered the world a slave — within the midst of a rustic whose most honoured writings declare that males have a proper to liberty.”
In 1848, Brown witnessed the traumatic sale of his spouse and kids amongst 350 enslaved individuals. This occasion sparked his need for freedom: “I now started to get weary of my bonds; and earnestly panted after liberty,” he later wrote. Brown conceived a daring plan to flee: he could be shipped in a field to a free state.
Brown paid two locals to assist him escape in a slim picket field, which was shipped from Virginia to Philadelphia, a journey that took 27 hours. Enduring immense bodily pressure, together with spending lengthy stretches the wrong way up, he lastly arrived alive. Abolitionists broke open the field and “resurrected” him from the “grave of slavery.”
Brown’s escape made him an immediate sensation within the abolitionist motion. He joined famend figures like Frederick Douglass, sharing his story on the transatlantic abolitionist lecture circuit. Nevertheless, harmful fugitive slave legal guidelines in the USA compelled Brown to maneuver to England, the place slavery had been abolished in 1834.
In England, Brown confronted a brand new problem. White abolitionists, who usually most well-liked a passive narrative of enslaved individuals, have been uncomfortable with Brown’s assured and theatrical type. Refusing to evolve, Brown took cost of his displays, incorporating magic and mesmerism to have interaction audiences. Ads for his exhibits from 1864 hailed him as “The Nice African Magician” and “King of All Mesmerists.” Regardless of the aptitude, his core message concerning the horrors of slavery remained unchanged. His performances included symbolic acts, comparable to illustrating the Center Passage, the brutal journey endured by enslaved Africans.
Brown’s activism prolonged past the stage. In 1852, he sued a British newspaper reviewer who belittled slavery’s realities in his performances. Successful the case, Brown continued to make use of his platform to withstand racism and problem stereotypes about enslaved individuals.
After slavery’s abolition in 1865, Brown returned to the U.S. He continued performing along with his second spouse and kids, spreading his message of freedom and equality. Later, he settled in Canada and spent his closing years in Toronto, the place he died in 1897.
Although Brown’s story is best recognized within the U.S., current efforts in Canada have sought to spotlight his closing chapter. Brown is memorialized by the “Henry Field Brown Lane” in Corktown, Toronto.
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